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We often have need of a profound philosophy to restore to our feelings their original state of innocence, to find our way out of the rubble of things alien to us, to begin to feel for ourselves and to speak ourselves, and I might almost say to exist ourselves. — Lichtenberg
There is one political question which cuts across class, race, epoch: what to do with unemployed young men? There is no part of the country — really, no place on earth — where male youths are not alienated and disaffected, and therefore dangerous. There is no place where there is any clear answer to the question about what it means to ‘be a man’ — and no place where there is any agreement about whether that question is even worth asking.
Older people are working longer and longer, retiring later and later; the Obama economy — while far superior to the Bush and Trump economies — failed to really address this underlying, structural issue: there aren’t enough meaningful — meaning-bestowing — jobs. There is enough blue-collar work. There isn’t enough interesting work.
Thus: there is a massive pride deficiency. Broken, under-educated, under-employed men don’t feel good about themselves; have no reason to feel good about themselves.
Thus: we get American fascism — the restoration of the pride of the American male via association with Donald Trump’s outrageous, unreasonable pride. The restoration of American labor through its worship of American capitalism. The devotion of the laborer to the capitalist.
